The Rescuers
by Lady Heliotrope
Summary: John and Sherlock are having issues about who is rescuing whom from what. This conflict colors their first visit to Avonlea De Marillac, Sherlock's very extraordinary mother. A three-chapter story. Established relationship, Johnlock.


******The Rescuers**

John and Sherlock are having issues about who is rescuing whom from what. This conflict colors their first visit to Avonlea De Marillac, Sherlock's very extraordinary mother. A three-chapter story.

* * *

Ten years after they first met, seven years after Sherlock's unanticipated (but desperately hoped-for) renaissance, six years after their animal selves finally joined for the first time, and five years after they'd made things As Official as was Reasonable, Sherlock and John were at a place in their relationship that their problems were, for the most part, generally solved.

For example, Sherlock took it upon himself to prevent John from resentfully avoiding confrontation and bottling up his emotions, particularly when John felt he needed something that Sherlock wasn't giving. John, in turn, limited Sherlock's tendency to survive on a diet of indifference towards his more 'human' side and emotional starvation.

But just as Sherlock seemed to have a knack for solving problems, so was he also a magnet for new dilemmas. Not exactly surprising, given that he functioned professionally in the same manner, but it was a bit irritating to John, who aspired to one day have no problems in his relationship with his romantic and professional partner. It was the next ideal towards which he was questing whole hog, with Quixotic insistence.

Irrespective of this, John was still delightedly discovering things he hadn't known about Sherlock. For example, one languid Saturday morning, while in bed together (still somewhat of a rare feat given Sherlock's continued scientific pursuits in the nighttime hours) John was admiring the way both their pairs of feet poked from the covers, curling around each other in a loose knot of sinew and bone. Delighting from afar in the the curves and gentle arches of their feet, John began a lazy game of footsie, stroking the inner sole of Sherlock's right foot, which was bare and exposed to the warm 8 o'clock sun that came through their window. Flexing his toes and pressing them gently against Sherlock's cool skin, John murmured something about breakfast.

"Not interested," responded Sherlock muffledly, his face pressed against the mattress and hidden under a pillow to keep the sunlight from interfering with his sleep.

"Come on," John said, sitting up in the bed and stretching.

"Don't stop," Sherlock said, enunciating just slightly more clearly. "I was just beginning to really enjoy it."

So with a smile John squished back under the blankets and pulled the comforter up to his chin (or rather, his corner of the comforter, since Sherlock as always was hogging much more of it than was strictly fair) and renewed his affectionate efforts with increased vigor.

"No, that's too much," muttered Sherlock, "just exactly as you were before."

"Picky, picky," chided John slyly, and he whipped around to put his arms forcefully around the detective, blankets and all.

"Mhph," Sherlock replied, not twisting away but pressing the pillow tighter against his head.

"Are you serious about wanting to sleep?" asked John, unusually energetic this morning. Then again, he'd gone to bed at his regular routine time and Sherlock had been up till at least three in the morning before he'd collapsed diagonally on their mattress. John and woken up just long enough to draw the covers over his partner and both had slept deeply.

"No," answered Sherlock with fatigue, but throwing the pillow off the bed and rising to a cobra stance. "Just being difficult."

"Well, how's this for difficult," John said, and, without really thinking, said, "You got one of those pink envelopes in the post yesterday."

At this, Sherlock threw himself off the bed with such a tiger-spring that John was left with a miniature earthquake to contend with.

"Where is it?" demanded Sherlock, all energy all of a sudden. His housecoat - the only thing he was wearing, heaven knows why - hung loose at his sides, and he hastily tied the belt, to John's mild disappointment.

"Shush now," John said, "you know I didn't open it even though I'm desperate to know who sends them."

Sherlock wasn't amused. "Where is it?" he asked again, firm.

Aching with the pain of being forced to get out of bed, John smiled and got up, pulling his own housecoat on over his boring, conservative gray pyjamas as he padded into the living room to the desk where he sorted their daily mail.

No doubt at all that Sherlock could have found it immediately, but John wasn't interested in seeing his desk torn up and messy after the hurricane went through. It was one of their rules - they still kept up their own private spaces, with John's room above-stairs and Sherlock's room in the main part of the flat, and their desks in the main room were formally included in this arrangement. Mostly because John couldn't bear to live in a flat that didn't have at least a little bit of _order _somewhere; Sherlock had free reign everywhere else, and while he made a little bit more of an effort than he used to, he still was far from neat.

"Right here," answered John long-sufferingly, giving the letter to Sherlock, who skimmed the contents, grimaced, and thrust the letter in his pocket. John was rewarded with the briefest parting of Sherlock's housecoat lapels, but Sherlock wasn't apparently in the mood for romance, and he flounced over to his couch, upon which he sprawled most undelicately.

"Who writes them?" asked John as Sherlock fiddled with the pillows. "Not Irene Adler, I hope?"

"I haven't talked to The Woman for six years, John," returned the detective, "yet you persist in bringing her up every chance you can."

"Old habits die hard," answered the doctor, "she was my first real rival, you know."

"Only in your lurid imagination," returned the detective without emotion. "No, John, use said imagination and figure out who it must be who sends me these letters. It's really child's play."

"Well," said John, walking into the kitchen to make them both some tea and toast, "You have received them about once every few months, not on any particular schedule that I can discern. You never, as far as I can tell, write a reply, which doesn't really surprise me. Because aside from things on the internet, which with you is hit-or-miss depending on how interesting they are, you have a thing against replying to people. Especially Mycroft."

Sherlock's pout was evident in his voice. "I reply to _you_."

"And I'm not really _people_, Sherlock. So in any case," John went on, putting the teakettle on and coming back into the living room, "that just goes to show that whoever it is, it's not exactly my competition."

Sherlock huffed and crossed his arms and said, as if it were a personal fault of John's, "You _have _no competition, John."

Which made John laugh a little as he leaned against the kitchen door frame, looking at the detective. The observation was true, and despite the gruffness, it was sweet.

"But you still read them diligently and with great interest every time they come," continued John, "which is more than I can say for any other mail you receive."

Sherlock changed position, pressing his fingers together and his eyes closed in a meditative way, and he just murmured, "Mhm. Go on."

"Also," John went on, walking into the living room and sitting on the arm of his chair, "the handwriting on the address is distinctly feminine. Educated. But loopy, as if the author was in rather a hurry. Perhaps a bit eccentric. I think the envelope is perfumed, too."

"What scent?" asked the detective calmly, without opening his eyes.

John sniffed his fingers for whatever lingering scent of the envelope might be there. "I'm not a great student of perfumes, but I'd say that was...Chanel."

"Indeed," returned the detective promptly. "No doubt you just knew that because of that boring teacher you dated."

"Jeanette," returned John with ease, though he couldn't remember if it was her that had worn Chanel or not. The fact hadn't mattered to him for ages.

"Whatever." Sherlock shrugged but kept his eyes closed. "Continue."

"So I know you've been getting these for at least a year," John went on, "perhaps two years. No more than that. I think I remember it was just after Valentine's Day when you received the first one. I remember being a bit excited when you opened it, thinking that it might be a case. A secret admirer of the 'catch me before I kill again' type."

Sherlock smirked at this.

"And when you didn't say anything, I remember being lividly jealous," John added with some nostalgia.

"I remember you being lividly jealous," returned Sherlock evenly. "But I was waiting for you to say something. It's taken you long enough."

"Thanks a lot," replied John, standing and going back to address the noise of the teakettle. "So anyway," he said upon his return with two cups of tea, one of which he put on the coffeetable for Sherlock. "It seems that these letters have some importance to you. But for the life of me, I can't decide what it would be. Do you keep them?"

"...yes," admitted Sherlock grudgingly.

John smiled, and, teasingly, suggested. "So there must be some sentimental value to them."

Sherlock sighed. It was still difficult for him to admit to such things.

"Some," he yielded.

Just to irritate him, John added, slyly, "I thought detectives weren't supposed to be sentimental."

"They _aren't,_" replied Sherlock with affected indifference, and scooped up yesterday's discarded newspaper from the coffeetable to hide his face.

"So who are they from?" pressed John, "I mean...really, Sherlock? Are they from..." A sudden thought struck him. "...Your mother?"

"Obvious," answered Sherlock, folding down the newspaper and taking the tea, sipping it in an absentminded manner.

"Well, you never talk about her, so how would I know," said John, getting up and going back to the kitchen to get the toast.

"What is there to talk about?" answered Sherlock without much interest. "She had sex with my father and gave birth to me. Is there anything else to say?"

"Well, she clearly has something to say to you," answered John, returning again and putting the toast at Sherlock's elbow before sitting down again himself. "So, tell, me, what does she write about?"

"Nothing and everything," answered Sherlock, "and none of it interesting."

"Really?" asked John, "given the way you read her letters, I'd say it was at least somewhat interesting."

"Only given the context," answered Sherlock.

"And what is that?" asked John, his full attention on the detective, who clearly wasn't interested in this conversation.

"She's my mother and she's addressing me," replied Sherlock with a drawl, staring at the ceiling, which was a sure sign that the subject was difficult for him to talk about. "That in itself warrants my attention."

It was interesting to see this side of Sherlock, who was so quick to defend Mrs. Hudson as a son might be. Sherlock seemed to have a similar amount of respect for his mother, if the amount of his affection seemed to be lacking. John was deeply curious. "But she only just started writing to you with this frequency," said John. "Why now, all of a sudden?"

Sherlock gave John a knowing, _it's so obvious _type of look.

"You mean..." John gave an intake of breath, a few things clicking together. "She didn't get the news until relatively recently."_  
_

"Hardly my fault," said Sherlock with a roll of his eyes. "Mycroft was always the mummy's boy. I didn't even know he'd told her about my supposed death. Since she tends to be media-averse, she probably wouldn't have known if he hadn't told her. Moreover, I assumed that if he _had _told her I was dead, I also assumed that he would tell her when I 'returned'. How was I to know that she'd be surprised to hear my voice when I called to inquire about using her tractor?"

"Your mother has a tractor?" asked John, then realized that was probably the least relevant question. "No, wait, so you just called your mother one day and she had no idea you were alive?"

Sherlock, not looking at John, shrugged. "What else could I have possibly meant?"

"Don't you-" John began to ask _don't you feel horrible about that_, but he changed his mind because that was an obvious question, of course Sherlock felt bad in some way. But it didn't do to project his own feelings onto his partner. So he went with the more bland, "How does that make you feel?"

Which, as always, that question made Sherlock scowl, but these days he was better about answering than in the early days of their relationship. "Like a neglectful son and an awful human being. As anyone would when their mother is sobbing on the 'phone. All the more because I was mostly irritated at the inconvenience of her breakdown just in the midst of my conducting of an experiment. But does caring about it change anything? Not at all."

The silence sat for a moment, and both of them sipped their tea.

"You don't have to dismiss your feelings because they don't change anything," said John quietly.

"And you don't need to give me permission to feel, John," replied Sherlock, a bit tart.

"Well, you don't give it to yourself," answered the doctor, rolling his eyes. "But tell me this," he went on at Sherlock's silence, "what exactly does she write about? And why don't you bother to ever write back, ever?"

Sherlock was certainly irritated at this point, but it was a surprise when he drew the crumpled ball of paper out of his pocket and threw it at John. It fell in John's lap, and John gingerly unfolded the pages to smooth.

"How do you reply to _that_?" asked Sherlock with frustration.

And John read the letter.

_Dearest Sherlock,_

_I was thinking the other day about the universality of _

_all things in the universe, which of course makes sense but_

_doesn't really make sense when you think about it_

_how on earth is everything interrelated?_

_the divine is a mysterious and powerful thing._

_so in my readings of late I've been running into_

_all sorts of synchronisities. not that I'm surprised of course_

_because synchronisities are the bread of life in my book_

_but because they are so synchronistic! _

_they arrive at exactly the right place and the right time_

_and how on earth can we anticipate them?_

_so when I think, as I often do_

_of how you (not really thank god!) encountered death_

_I wish in retrospect that I had told you these things_

_that give me such solace and peace._

_It is a miracle at which I wonder every day_

_the miracle that you're still here in this world with us_

_and I want you to look carefully for the synchronisties_

_because they do give us solace, they do, they do, they do._

_they provide meaning! they provide meaning. _

_look for the meaning in everything, my dear. _

_I love you so much and the idea that I might have __failed to teach you this_

_haunts me every day._

_Mycroft has said you've found someone to love_

_and I am dying to meet this person, as I think I've said several times now_

_but I forget if I've just thought that or actually expressed as much on paper._

_I really should just make photocopies of these letters so I have some reference_

_of what I've written to you already_

_I wish you would write back, then I'd know you were listening_

_but I know that you always preferred to be a mystery to me_

_beautiful boy._

_I keep you in my heart every day._

_please call me at least sometime and tell me what you're reading_

_right now the thing that's stirring my brain is Andre Gideon._

_I still keep coming back to Plath, sad but true!_

_I hope you still read good books._

_much love to you and please call me soon._

_Your loving mother._

__"That's really sweet," said John, to which Sherlock threw his hands in the air.

"But what does one _say_ to that!" exclaimed the detective, clearly not amused by John's appreciation of the letter. "It's gibberish, for the most part."

"Is this the sort of thing she usually writes?" asked John, feeling a pang of sadness that his own mother had passed away long ago.

How could Sherlock be so callous when it came to his kin, John wondered.

"_Always_," answered Sherlock with irritation.

John contemplated the letter, and he felt anew the feeling, _if Sherlock didn't have me around to help him make sense of these things..._

And he let this feeling get the better of him.

"I think we should go visit her," he said, and Sherlock sat bolt upright.

"No," replied Sherlock.

"Yes," said John. "How old is she, Sherlock?"

"Just on the eve of sixty," Sherlock answered, irritated. "But it's none of your business, John, not really."

"But she won't be around forever," John said, "don't you want to avoid feeling guilt later?"

Sherlock just rolled his eyes. "Stop trying to _save _me from some fate that you anticipate I will suffer," he answered, his tone getting progressively poisonous. "Believe it or not, I don't need to be rescued from myself."

"Um," John responded, feeling like this comment had come rather from out of the blue. "What do you mean by 'rescued' from yourself?"

Sherlock appeared exasperated but also a bit relieved, as if he'd been hiding this for a long time. "John, you're always trying to tell me how I should do things that are, quite frankly, none of your damn business. And when you're not _telling _me, you're making corrections subtly on my behalf. Apologizing to other people for things that I say and _mean_ and don't care to apologize for. Paying attention to the people I don't pay attention to _simply _because I didn't pay attention to them, irrespective of their deserving of it. Doing all my 'pleases' and 'thank yous'. Because you're afraid of what people will THINK of me. It's maddening!"

And Sherlock took a breath and continued, at a rapid pace. "And this behavior extends to our functional day-to-day lives as well as within a social context. You're always tidying up my work table, doing my laundry unasked, 'accidentally' disposing of legitimate experiments, doing the dishes with the face of a martyr, every single day. Do you honestly think I need to be rescued from dirty dishes? Of what importance are they?"

While John was able to intellectually understand Sherlock's frustration, his own feelings got in the way of his response. "Are you serious, Sherlock?" he asked, feeling hurt and invalidated. "I mean...have you looked at the messes you make? I spend most of my life cleaning up after you. Stop deluding yourself. If I wasn't around you'd be living like one of those horrible Hoarders on the telly."

"That may well be," the detective answered, "but what of it?"

"It's...it's not good, Sherlock," answered John, "to not care about these kinds of things."

"But I just _don't_," Sherlock answered with a bewilderment that John couldn't comprehend. "Can you give me a single legitimate reason why it's important?"

"You're always talking about _order and method_," replied John, his voice more stable than he felt, "so how come keeping your life in a way that is ordered and methodical makes no sense to you?"

"Because I just don't see it," Sherlock said, "It's irrelevant. I don't see dirty dishes, John."

John sighed. "And that's why you need me, Sherlock. To see, and to clean up, the dishes."

"But who says they need to be _done_?" said Sherlock. "I'm perfectly content with them remaining as they are for a certain duration of time. You don't need to get up and do them with that put-upon attitude you always have."

"Well, if I have an attitude, I think it's fair given your indifference towards these things," answered John. "I mean, really, Sherlock, you're a scientist - does not a clean worktable matter to you?"

"My worktable is certainly clean, John. By compunction. It's not a fair comparison."

John slouched back in his chair, a somber mood settling on him. It was clear that this was a problem - because he was falling victim to this poor-me-Sherlock-doesn't-ever-help-with-chores kind of mentality. But John felt that he wasn't unjustified.

"It's a need I have, Sherlock," he answered, "It's a need I have for things to be at least halfway tidy."

"That doesn't answer the question of why you imagine I'm not capable of navigating these social landscapes without your interference."

"Look," said John, "we've talked about this a few times over the years, Sherlock. We've talked about the fact that how other people perceive you is important to me. It's important because I love you. Can't you understand that yet?"

"Only intellectually," answered Sherlock, "because it certainly doesn't matter to me what people think of _you_, despite the similarity of my position." His voice was tinged with sulkiness, and despite John's stubbornness, he was moved.

In some ways, Sherlock's love of him was a little more selfless than his love of Sherlock, John acknowledged with gritted teeth.

"I don't need to change how other people think of you," went on Sherlock, further driving the point home. "Why do you need to change how other people think of _me?"_

The sentiment _Am I not good enough_, a doubt that was always in Sherlock's mind, was present in the subtext of this statement. This always made John's heart melt.

Sensing that they were, as they often ended up after these kinds of conversations, at an impasse, John sighed, put his teacup down, and changed from his chair to squish onto the couch with the narrow detective.

"You are _good enough for me_," said John, pressing a kiss to the temple of the detective who was somewhat reluctant to budge over and make room for the doctor on the couch. "You are just different with other people. Surely you know that."

"Not as much as you think I am," said Sherlock.

Whereupon John decided not to press the matter any more for the moment.

"Let's freeze this topic for the moment," he said, "and talk about it later. Arguing doesn't solve anything."

"Fine."

The detective's heartbeat was rapid, John noted as he pressed his cheek to Sherlock's chest, which meant that the decision was the right one, for the moment.

"So back to the case of your mother," John said.

"What about her?" asked Sherlock, but his voice was a bit more flexible than it had been.

"Let's just go ahead and see her," said John. "Unless she makes you feel unsafe, somehow?"

"Not at all." Sherlock frowned. "She's my mother. Her intentions are never inappropriate. She's just...just..."

He sighed. "...Whatever. I know the more I resist, the more you'll try to persuade me. So fine. Whatever. We'll go see her. Even though it's clearly because you're trying to compensate for your own orphan issues. Happy now?"

"Not quite," said John with a smile. "Call her and set a date."

"Fine," whinged Sherlock, "give me your mobile."

John made no comment, getting up, going to the bedroom, and retrieving the phone from its charger. He tossed it to Sherlock, and the detective typed a number that apparently he knew by heart.

"Mum?" he said firmly when a voice answered, "John and I are coming up Thursday next to spend the weekend on the farm."

The reply was enthusiastic on the other end, but Sherlock barely bit out "We'll arrive on the six-thirty train. Send someone to fetch us. Talk to you then."

He hung up before she could engage him in any more significant conversation, and threw the phone back to John.

"Presuming you can get off work," he said by way of apology, to which John just smiled.

"No, it'll be fine," replied the doctor, turning back to the bedroom to put the phone back on the charger, "we've not had a holiday in a long while. It'll be fun."

Sherlock didn't reply to that, just standing up, looking around, and then as if suddenly inspired, added, "I'm taking a shower, if you're interested."

"Very," answered John, "just let me do the dishes."

"No dishes," replied Sherlock with unchallengeable finality. "You just had your way about visiting my mother."

"Fine," conceded the doctor, and the two of them ambled into the bathroom for a very interesting shower indeed.

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